Online Casino News and Information

The Patent enforcer is at it again!  This time it is 1st Technology’s turn to file action. All these patent laws need to be watched carefully. Anytime you start a website, make sure the name or any of it does not have a patent already.

Seven more online gambling companies find themselves undergoing the unwelcome patent attention of Dr. Scott Lewis and his 1st Technology company this week, with the costly Bodog dispute apparently at a stalemate.

The St. Louis law firm Simon Passanate has filed patent enforcement suits on behalf of 1st Technology in the Eastern District court of Missouri, citing four Costa Rican, two Norwegian and one Netherlands Antilles companies, according to a report from the online gambling information portal Gambling 911

The companies were named as Digital Gaming Solutions SA, Costa Rica International Sports, Action Poker Gaming Enterprises and SBG Global in Costa Rica; Playsafe Holding AS and eCom Enterprises in Norway and Digital Gaming Network, Ltd., in the Netherlands Antilles jurisdiction.

As was the case with Bodog and an earlier and now settled case against Sportingbet, the plaintiff alleges infringement of the 1st Technology US patent 5 564 001, issued in 2001 and entitled “Method and System for Interactively Transmitting Information Over A Network Which Requires Reduced Bandwidth.”

According to the 911 report, the plaintiff seeks an immediate halt to further patent infringement, treble damages and the impoundment and destruction of all infringing products.

Anthony G. Simon, representing 1st Technology commented: “1st Technology is a leading technology licensing company that invests considerable resources in developing its intellectual property and is dedicated to protecting and enforcing the same.” Simon’s law firm has an impressive track record in intellectual property actions.

Dr. Lewis, who heads up 1st Technology, told 911: “Our initial goal here, as in all of our cases, is to reach swift and fair settlements that respect our intellectual property rights for companies with U.S. facing operations and utilize our patents…if we are unable to reach a swift resolution of the dispute, we move forward quickly and apply all of our resources to enforce all of our U.S. legal rights.”

Dr. Lewis and his company have been embroiled in a long running and bitterly acrimonious dispute with the Bodog group and its erstwhile CEO Calvin Ayre in recent months (see previous InfoPowa reports) following the award of a $48 million default judgement against Bodog and the confiscation of its domains, forcing an extensive re-branding exercise by the online gambling group. Ayre has consistently claimed that service of the court documents was not affected.

So make sure when you do a website to check and recheck to see that no one else has a patent on it! That way this will not happen to you!

If the US Government would go after real criminals as hard as they try to get people in the Gambling Industry, there would be no terrorists for us to worry about. They would all be in prison. I think the US has their priorities in wrong places.

Kaplan was arrested over a year ago on several charges, including tax evasion. Kaplan says he did not violate tax laws, saying “no wagering excise tax was owed by him because the wagers either were not accepted in the Unites States or were not placed by a person who was in the United States”.

The court documents state: “The government further alleges that defendant Kaplan caused and directed that wagering funds be sent outside the United States. There are no allegations that persons in the Eastern District of Missouri were directed to send funds outside the United States.”

The whole story:
http://www.egrmagazine.com/item/2526/23/5/3

We will continue to keep up updated on these proceedings as they develop. For those who don’t know, Kaplan is the founder of Betonsports.

U.S. needs to take heed to these other countries! They have realized how hard it will be to enforce the UIGEA Bill. Wake up America and smell the roses, this is one bill that is almost impossible to enforce.

Jacek Kapica the Deputy Finance Minister stated in April there were plans to legalize online gambling by end of 2008.The previous conservative Law and Justice(PiS) ruled against legalizing online betting a year ago, saying the cost to the state would be tremendous.

According to the analysts any budget revenues from online gambling would be a lot lower than at first suspected, and that the cost of regulating it would be to high.

Kapica said: “We cannot control this process anyway and it is better that the budget at least derives some revenue from it,”

The Polish Press suggested that Poland’s change was influenced by European Court of Justice ruling that said that Italy may not use criminal law to ban foreign online gambling companies from attracting Italian players.

Now if the rest of the world would see it the same way, all of this could be settled quickly and easily!! Shows some countries are smarter than others huh?

Whole story:

http://www.wbj.pl/?command=article&id=40961

We have all been waiting to see the next step in this saga of the UIGEA, well we can now see the next step. This article is a step in the right direction. We all need to stand behind this and to let our Congressmen know where we stand on this issue.

The proposed rules of the UIGEA Bill are ambiguous and are not going to stop millions of Americans from gambling online.

“[R]epresentatives from the regulatory agencies themselves admitted that there are substantial problems in crafting regulations to implement the UIGEA in a manner that does not have a substantial adverse effect on the efficiency of the nation’s payment system,” wrote House Committee on Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.), Ranking Member Ron Paul (R-Texas) and committee members Luis V. Gutierrez (D-Ill.) and Peter King (R - N.Y.) in a letter sent to all members of Congress.
H.R. 5767 was introduced by Reps. Frank and Paul on April 10. It would prohibit the Department of the Treasury and Federal Reserve System from proposing, prescribing or implementing any regulations required by UIGEA.
“These bi-partisan congressional leaders understand that the proposed regulations can’t work. Their legislation would relieve U.S. financial services companies from the burden of policing the Internet and implementing a ban on Internet gambling that is doomed to fail,” said Jeffrey Sandman, spokesman for the Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative. “U.S. financial services companies should be focusing their undivided attention on the economy, not trying to stop people from exercising their freedom to use the Internet to play poker, bet on horses, or engage in other types of gambling activities.”
Earlier this week, Reps. Frank, Paul, Gutierrez and King called on the Department of the Treasury and Federal Reserve System to cease implementation of regulations related to UIGEA. In letters addressed to Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson, Jr. and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, they wrote, “Given the many other priorities that are pending at your agencies…we believe it would be imprudent for you to devote additional agency resources to this Sisyphean task.”
Representatives from the Credit Union National Association, Financial Services Roundtable, American Bankers Association and Wells Fargo & Co. testified about the burden they would unnecessarily face before the House Committee on Financial Service’s Subcommittee on Domestic and International Monetary Policy, Trade, and Technology on April 2. They testified that both UIGEA and the proposed regulations were so ambiguous that they made it impossible to determine what may or may not be illegal activities.
Their comments reflect the concerns echoed in the more than 200 comments submitted to the Department of the Treasury and Federal Reserve System.
Frank introduced legislation last year, the Internet Gambling Regulation and Enforcement Act (H.R. 2046), that would regulate Internet gambling. The bill would require licensed Internet gambling operators to put in place safeguards to protect against underage and compulsive gambling and ensure the integrity of financial transactions.
A companion piece of legislation to the Frank bill introduced by Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA), the Internet Gambling Regulation and Tax Enforcement Act of 2008 (H.R. 5523), would ensure the collection of taxes on regulated Internet gambling activities. According to a tax revenue analysis prepared by PricewaterhouseCoopers, taxation of regulated Internet gambling is expected to generate between $8.7 billion to $42.8 billion in federal revenues over its first 10 years.
A copy of the letter on H.R. 5767 can be found here.
Contact your Representative to thank them or ask for their support for regulated Internet gambling. Visit www.safeandsecureig.org and take action today.

Everyone who enjoys gambling online in their own homes need to get off your bohunkus and be heard. Let them know how you feel!!

The online poker site Pokertrillion is leaving the Boss Poker network, and is filing a law suit against Boss Media. Therefore Boss Media has had millions of Euros frozen in their accounts. So will Boss Media have enough to pay their players who decide to cash out?

That is a question everyone is asking, and how this will be settled. Pokertrillion has just released this press release. This details the reasons of the law suit.

April 12, 2008 Malta – Trillion Limited (POKERTRILLION.com).

There have been a lot of rumors, a lot of speculation, and a lot of questions surrounding the current position between POKERTRILLION.com, Boss Holdings Limited and Boss Media Malta Poker Ltd. This statement seeks to clarify everything.

On Friday 11th April 2008 POKERTRILLION.com achieved a freezing order of the bank accounts of Boss Holdings Limited and Boss Media Malta Poker Ltd. The freezing order was executed at five of the banks where they hold accounts, and it will be executed at the reaming two banks early Monday morning. The freezing order has been made in conjunction and relating to a €45million initial law suit being taken by POKERTRILLION against Boss Media and Webdollar for alleged fraudulent, and potential criminal activities of various personnel and/or the management of Boss Media, or their associated companies in various jurisdictions including but not restricted to, Sweden and Malta.

It is anticipated that this will have a serious detrimental impact on the players who have money with Boss Media or any of its associated companies including Webdollar, because obviously the accounts have now been frozen so it is likely that when the freezing order is executed across all the Webdollar and Boss Media accounts, players will find it impossible to withdraw funds.

POKERTRILLION.com as a small and new entrant to the market is taking a zero tolerance approach to being mistreated by Boss Media, furthermore, owing to the massive irregularities surrounding Boss Media and their handling of POKERTRILLION.com this led to a number of contractual issues that led to POKERTRILLION.com making extremely exciting and important developments in the way in which it operated its business.

Further information will be released as and when the courts give permission for POKERTRILLION.com to discuss such developments. In the interim, all players who hold accounts with POKERTRILLION.com have an unconditional and unlimited guarantee on all funds they hold through POKERTRILLION.com.

It is highly likely, if Boss Media follows the proper code of conduct as it should do, it will have to make a full and complete disclosure to the Stockholm Stock Exchange where they are listed. This invariably will have a catastrophic effect on their share price, and may even lead to the arrest by the authorities of certain members of their management team and the possible suspension of their sharers. This in turn, would mean that players not in the POKERTRILLION.com stable would find their funds in serious jeopardy yet again.

POKERTRILLION.com however is delighted that this situation has created the ability to develop some fantastic new opportunities which are to be revealed in the coming week.

Should you require any further information please contact manager@pokertrillion.com or the judicial courts in Malta.

It is about time for some good news for a change!! And the ones that have been fighting for this since it was passed in 2006, the UIGEA Bill, maybe finally winning the battle!! After the hearing last week with the U.S. Treasury, they found out just how hard it would be to get this bill enforced.

Now finally we get this fresh off the press, and this is going to make a lot of people very happy. I know it puts a smile on my face!!!

Current law unduly burdens U.S. financial services institutions

    WASHINGTON, April 11 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The Safe and Secure
Internet Gambling Initiative (SSIGI) announced its support for new
legislation, H.R.5767, that would prohibit the Department of the Treasury
and Federal Reserve System from proposing, prescribing or implementing any
regulations related to the current ban on Internet gambling, as required by
the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIGEA). The bill
was introduced yesterday by Reps. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Ron Paul
(R-Texas).

 ”The Frank-Paul bill would stop the U.S. government from taking any
further steps on regulations that would require all of the country’s
financial institutions to block Internet Gambling payments,” said SSIGI
spokesman Jeff Sandman. “It’s a bold move, but a necessary one, in light of
the warnings from the Treasury and Federal Reserve that they did not know
how to write regulations to solve the problems created by UIGEA. Further,
witnesses representing a broad spectrum of the financial services community
unanimously stated that the current ban on Internet gambling is dangerous
to the payments system and ineffective in stopping people from using the
Internet to play poker, make bets on horses, or engage in other types of
wagering.”

   The current Internet gambling ban creates significant additional
burdens for U.S. financial institutions, which say that it is unfair to
turn them into the Internet gambling police at a time when their undivided
attention ought to be on the economy.

 Testimony before Congress last week offered proof that financial
services institutions would face serious regulatory burdens in attempting
to enforce UIGEA and related regulations, which is unlikely to stop
millions of Americans from gambling online.

  Representatives from the Credit Union National Association, Financial
Services Roundtable, American Bankers Association and Wells Fargo & Co.
testified about the burden they would unnecessarily face before the House
Committee on Financial Service’s Subcommittee on Domestic and International
Monetary Policy, Trade, and Technology on April 2. The current UIGEA law is
ambiguous and allows for multiple interpretations of what may or may not be
illegal activities.

 Their comments reflect the concerns echoed in the more than 200
comments submitted to the Department of the Treasury and Federal Reserve
System.

 Frank introduced legislation last year, the Internet Gambling
Regulation and Enforcement Act (H.R. 2046), that would regulate Internet
gambling. The bill would require licensed Internet gambling operators to
put in place safeguards to protect against underage and compulsive gambling
and ensure the integrity of financial transactions.

A companion piece of legislation to the Frank bill introduced by Rep.
Jim McDermott (D-WA), the Internet Gambling Regulation and Tax Enforcement
Act of 2008 (H.R. 5523), would ensure the collection of taxes on regulated
Internet gambling activities. According to a tax revenue analysis prepared
by PricewaterhouseCoopers, taxation of regulated Internet gambling is
expected to generate between $8.7 billion to $42.8 billion in federal
revenues over its first 10 years.

  About Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative

    The Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative promotes the freedom
of individuals to gamble online with the proper safeguards to protect
consumers and ensure the integrity of financial transactions. For more
information on the Initiative, please visit http://www.safeandsecureig.org. The
Web site provides a means by which individuals can register support for
regulated Internet gambling with their elected representatives.

Yes U.S. it is time to say fold’em. Listen to what the rest of the world as well as most of the citizens of the United States are saying. We all want what is fair for our Free Nation. A Nation of free enterprise and trade for one and all!

This antigambling law needs to be folded. It is like playing poker, a game of skill I may add, to know when it is time to fold. This law or so called law, has no way to be enforced, and with the economy in bad enough shape as it is, without having to try and pay off all these other countries for breaking the WTO Rules!

The EU has launched an investigation into whether the U.S. Justice Department is selectively enforcing its antigambling law on the EU firms that offer wagers on sporting events.  Washington discriminates against the EU by permitting U.S. Internet horse betting. Last year the U.S. lost just such a case against Antigua and Barbuda. These small Nations won.

WTG EU!! Fight for what is right!

For the whole story:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120779121832703691.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

We would also like to congratulate Intertops Casino on 10 years of Trustworthy Service!! Intertops launched back in 1998, and has continued to provide excellent service to this day.

Michl Posch of Intertops stated: “Trust is everything in this business. To earn that trust you haveto pay out all winnings quickly and reliably. That may seem pretty basic but not all operators make it a top priority as Intertops has ever since it began its sportsbook inLondon twenty-five years ago.”

The other commitment Intertops made is to continually add the best new games, and thanks to Microgaming they provide hundreds of state-of-the-art casino games.

Michael Corfman of the GPWA, which evaluates and endorses gambling websites, said: “IntertopsCasino has set the bar very high for other online casinos.  “I know many online casinos will have tenth birthdays coming up, but IntertopsCasino.com is one of the first and one of the best. We congratulate them on ten years of honest operations.”

Another WIN for online gaming!! Now if the rest of the world would just take heed, all this could be settled just as easy. Especially the US!!! This just goes to show that not giving up pays in the long run.

All of us in the Industry could learn that fighting for what we think is right, could pay off. So US get your head out of the sand, and listen to what the people want in America.

SNG (Spielbanken Niedersachsen GmbH) won their appeal to get a license to operate an online gaming site. WTGGG  SNG!!

After initiating legal action against the State of Lower Saxony, they won , and now have a license.

SNG Managing Director Rainer Chrubassik said that SNG would launch its online casino as soon as the ruling comes into force. He stated: “We are delighted that we will now be able to launch our internet gaming site,” said Chrubassik. The SNG online casino incorporates unique and exemplary security measures to protect players and minors. It is impossible to achieve a total ban on internet gaming. The clock cannot be turned back on the reality of the internet. Only licensed internet gaming sites can meet regulatory channeling requirements and prevent players from turning to illegal, unregulated sites. We are fully committed to these requirements.

For full article:
http://www.casinosaustria.com/cai_cr_news_detail_archive.aspx?ID=16707

At the hearing yesterday on just WHAT the rules are on the UIGEA Bill, left everyone more confused than ever! No one could say exactly what the rules were in the bill, what is illegal and what is legal.

Now if the people who is supposed to enforce this law, don’t know what it all means, who does? And should the Government put this burden on the shoulders of the banks in the U.S.? Banks say NO!

Roseman stated: The payment system that companies rely on to do business “isn’t frankly well designed” to identify an illegal Internet gambling transaction from a legal one, which is another challenge to crafting a rule.

Valerie Abend, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Treasury, stated: regulators were striving to craft a rule that comes as close as possible to what lawmakers intended.

But the question of which forms of Internet gambling are illegal is an issue regulators “are struggling with and trying to figure out what, if anything, we can do,”

I watched the hearing online yesterday, and it sounded to me like No one knows just what to do on this issue.

Rep. Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, has proposed legislation to repeal the ban.

This was a very interesting meeting, and what will happen with it is still unclear, not only to the public, but also for the Financial Committee.

Read the whole article:

http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSN0242078620080402?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0

We all need to write our Congressman, so maybe our voice can be heard at this hearing!! This will be the first time that our concerns about the UIGEA will be addressed in public, Speak Up!!

The list of who all will testify is not yet available, but The House Committee of financial Services is chaired by Rep. Barney Frank, who has a bill in committee that would essentially wipe the UIGEA off the books. Keep fingers crossed that this will happen!! You can watch the hearing live from the link below.

The hearing is for the Domestic and International Monetary Policy, Trade and Technology (SMPTT) committee, which is a subcommittee of the House Committee of Financial Services.

Washington, DC – Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez (D-IL), chairman of the Subcommittee on Domestic and International Monetary Policy, Trade and Technology today announced that the subcommittee will hold a hearing to discuss proposed regulations to the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) on Wednesday, April 2, 2008 at 10:00 a.m.

Watch it live on April 2nd at 10 AM ET:

http://www.house.gov/apps/list/hearing/financialsvcs_dem/hr040208.shtml